DANVILLE, Ill. (WAND) – A murder cold case is considered closed after DNA testing connected a dead suspect to the crime.
Danville Director of Public Safety Larry Thomason says James R. Lyons assaulted and strangled 18-year-old Virginia Sue Nipper on March 26, 1980. Nipper’s husband and mother-in-law found her body at her home, located at 404 Sager Street in Danville, at about 4 p.m. on that day.
“As part of the investigating team we were able to determine that Mrs. Nipper was intending to take her son to her mother-in-law that morning after speaking with her mother-in-law at about 8:40 a.m.,” Thomason said. “Mrs. Nipper was scheduled to attend classes at DACC and her husband had left for work at about 6:30 a.m.”
Thomason says detectives interviewed “many people” over a period of weeks, but nothing concrete developed that pointed to one suspect.
Lyons was convicted on a charge of unlawful restraint in a different case, in which he attacked Christiana Pesek on Nov. 2, 1980. Pesek was Nipper’s sister-in-law. He had to serve 30 months of probation for that crime.
Investigators say there were similarities in the Pesek and Nipper cases, leading them to consider Lyons a suspect in Nipper’s death.
“Evidence was submitted with necessary comparisons, but there were no matches found sufficient to go forward,” Thomason said.
Things changed in 2015, when detectives re-submitted technology for new DNA testing. Labs were limited in 1980 to ABO blood grouping.
On July 13, 2018, results came back that linked Lyons to the murder. A press release from investigators says different pieces of evidence showed odds of 1 in 27 million, 1 in 3.6 million, 1 in 310,000, and finally 1 in 96 trillion.
Lyons died in 2003. Thomason says he would face charges if he were still alive.
Vermilion County State’s Attorney Jacqueline Lacy applauded the Danville Police Division and the Illinois State Police Crime Lab for their hard work on the case.
